The shift away from supporting the death penalty among evangelicals is "a big deal", according to Shane Claiborne.
On Monday the board of the National Association of Evangelicals approved a resolution that changed its 1973 resolution that favoured the death penalty. It did not remove support for the death penalty, but does now acknowledge evangelicals who oppose it.
Claiborne, a Christian activist based in Philadelphia, told The Washington Post that despite not being a reversal in position, the shift is significant:
"What it shows is that there is not a consensus to be pro-capital punishment," he said. "It flags both social and theological concerns and affirms the growing movement of evangelicals who are against the death penalty."
Arguably, the death penalty has been part of public policy because of conservative Christians, not in spite of them according to Claiborne.
Contrasting the evangelical position on capital punishment with its position on abortion, he said:
"While evangelicals have been champions for life on abortion, we've been the cheerleaders for death when it comes to execution.
"Over 85 per cent of executions in the last 40 years have been in the Bible belt. As death penalty scholar and death row chaplain Dale Recinella puts it, 'The Bible belt has become the death belt.'"
He challenged this reality, highlighting the cruel irony that while evangelicals sing "Amazing Grace" on a Sunday, they are happy to show a convict none when it comes to capital punishment:
"The Bible would be much shorter without grace. But for far too long we've missed the fact that every time we execute someone we undermine the very message of God's redeeming love."
Referencing the execution of Kelly Gissendaner last month in Georgia, Claiborne held up her time in prison as an "exemplary model of rehabilitation loved deeply by prisoners and guards alike." Despite her faith, the support of hundreds of pastors and Pope Francis, Gissendaner was executed by a person who shared her Christian faith.
Claiborne saw hope in the statement from the NAE, saying "grace has a foot in the door of evangelicalism. The new resolution is one small step for the NAE, but is one giant leap for abolition."
NAE President Leith Anderson said that a growing number of evangelicals are calling for government resources to be moved away from the death penalty.
It remains that 71 per cent of white evangelicals support the death penalty, according to a March 2015 Pew Research Center survey. This is less than 2011, when the support was at 77 per cent.
Millennial and non-white evangelicals are sending an anti-death penalty message, according to Samuel Rodriguez, who leads the National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference.
"This is coming from very conservative evangelicals who are staunchly pro-life," Rodriguez said. "They don't see it as a liberal issue."
Claiborne hoped that "a generation from now ... a post-death-penalty world looks back and sees Christians standing on the side of life... in the name of the executed and risen Christ."
